


Death Be Not Proud

by Menoetius



Category: Silent Witness (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-16
Updated: 2011-08-16
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menoetius/pseuds/Menoetius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In ICU, Janet and Harry talk. A missing scene for Intent (13x02).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Be Not Proud

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I do seem to be rewriting all of Series 13. This is probably the only time I will ever write canon-compliant fic in this fandom.

_"So. What do you want to do? "_

*

Harry jerked awake. He blinked, disorientated in the never-quite-darkness of an intensive care unit at night and at the uncomfortable sensation of having slept bent over a hospital bed while fully dressed.

"I’m sorry," said a low voice."I didn’t mean to wake you. "

For one blissful second he had thought that he’d been wrenched from a few precious moments of sleep in the middle of a long shift by his bleeper, but seeing Janet with her hands tense on the chair she had been trying to move quietly across the floor, reality had intruded all too quickly. He hadn’t been a house officer in more than a decade; the creaks from his abused spine were testament to that. And even in those first few terrifying months as a doctor, he hadn’t felt responsible for another person’s life in the same way that he now was for Leo’s.

"Is he -- "

"Just the same," said Harry, his voice still groggy with sleep. He vaguely recalled trying to send her home for some rest, just after midnight. “You couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

"I slept, " she said. "I woke up an hour ago and his side of the bed was empty, and for just a minute, I thought that he must have been called out. Then…" She shrugged. "I couldn’t have gone back to sleep after that."

Janet finished moving the chair and settled herself into it and for a time they sat in a companionable silence, the quiet only broken by the monotonous beep of Leo’s monitors and the occasional rattle of a trolley in the ward overhead.

"What time is it?" Harry asked, finally. The sky outside was still inky black.

"Just gone five," she said. And: "Have you been here the whole time?"

"I was talking to him," he said. "I was asking him what I should do. I think I hoped that if I asked enough questions, he might get irritated enough to wake up and actually answer one of them." And, quietly: "It occurred to me, while I was sitting here, that neither Nikki nor I thought to ask what it is that you want."

"It isn't important."

"It is. I think maybe it's the only thing that's important."

"He chose the two of you, Harry. He did that for a reason."

Harry chewed on his lip. "Janet, what are you asking me?"

“I thought when I met him. I wondered.” Janet wrapped her arms around herself and he thought, as he had the day before when she had come to them both and told them, that he had never seen her look so small. “Leo loves you so much, you and her. I thought, maybe. I asked, once, and he said that there hadn’t been anyone else for him to go to, after he had lost his family. He said that you were both the only family he had left. I thought nothing more of it until I was going through his papers today. And then I thought that if they had been, that it made sense for him to have named both of you. I thought that he wouldn’t want her to have to make those sorts of decisions on her own. He can be very old-fashioned in some ways.”

"He can," he agreed easily. "He's never cheated on you, Janet. He doesn't have the time, for one. He's a crap liar, for another."

"I know. I know that he wouldn't. I thought, though..."

"There was never anything between them. Ever. I promise."

"I suppose." She slumped. "I don't think I would even mind if there had been. It's not that. It's just – well, he doesn't talk much about his past and you can't help but wonder about the blanks. I keep thinking, if this is it, how much will there be that I never knew about him."

There was an expectant pause, and Harry, sounding as though he was choosing his words carefully, said: "It wasn't Nikki."

Janet fell silent and there was a beat of almost quiet, broken by the steady beep of Leo's monitors. "I don't understand," she said.

"It wasn’t – Nikki wasn't the one."

“Harry?”

“I've never told anyone that." Harry spoke softly. "He made me his trustee when he came back to work after Theresa died. Nikki was added when we... He thought that she would be the sensible one. He thought that I shouldn’t have to make that decision alone, if it came to that," he said, voice suddenly thick. "I never was any good at death."

A short, surprised bark of an almost laugh.

“It’s the goodbyes that I'm rubbish with,” he said. "You might have noticed that I chose to specialise in an area where I don't often have to say them." He looked up at Janet, finally, and said: “Janet, do you know what I’m saying?”

“You and Leo."

“I threw it in his face,” said Harry. “It was the day he was attacked. I asked him if -- Well.” He managed a ghost of a smile. “It’s not important. I swore that I’d never be that man, but it was nearly the last thing I ever said to him.” And then told her firmly: “It ended a long time ago. A long time before he met you.”

"I never knew."

"Nobody did."

"Not even Nikki?" she asked, skeptically.

"We didn't tell people. If she worked it out for herself, she's certainly never said anything to me. It wasn't a grand love affair," he said, ruefully. "It was friendship, and then it was more than that and neither of us had expected it."

"He's an easy man to love, though," she offered, hesitant and unsure.

Harry's eyes rested on Leo with a look of something like fond exasperation. "No, he's not," he said. "He's loyal and magnetic and principled and brave and _brilliant_ , Janet, but he's not an easy man to love. And yet we both do anyway." He turned his hand in Leo's and, barely a whisper: "I called him a bastard, you know, for leaving me to deal with this."

"I've been calling him much worse than that," said Janet. "Harry." She started to say something, and then stopped, and, eventually: "Why did you tell me?"

"You asked," he said. "And you deserved an honest answer."

"And – "

"No," he said, cutting off the rest of the question.

"You still love him," she said. He blinked and the corners of Janet's lips turned up briefly, reminding him that she did this for a living. "You just told me, Harry."

"I do," he said. "I have done since I was a bright-eyed bushy-tailed registrar. He was my closest friend and I don't know what – " He dropped his head into his hands. "Shit, Leo. What the hell am I supposed to do without you?"

"But?"

"It was over," he repeated. "Janet, you made him happy. He loved you. He wanted to be with you. And he would want to know what you wanted us to do."

She looked at him, eyes heavy with unshed tears and lack of sleep. She made a strangled noise. "He wouldn't want this," she said. " He never sat still. He never stopped thinking. He'd have hated this, Harry. You know he would have."

Harry released a breath that he didn't realise he'd been holding. "I know," he said, and kissed her on the cheek. "I know."

The tears came, then, and he took her into his arms and held her while they both cried themselves out. He didn't know how long they had both sat there, Janet shaking with quiet sobs while his tears ran down his face and into her hair, but when they parted, a thin grey light was beginning to come through the window.

"So what do we do now?" she asked.

"I talk to Nikki," Harry said. "I don't think she'll disagree, but she has to give consent and she should have time to – I mean, she deserves – she'll want to say – "

"I know," said Janet.

"And then we talk to the doctors." Harry swallowed. "I'll go now and call Nikki. I'll bring us some coffee back. You should have some time with him." He bent to give a last kiss to Leo, on the forehead and then tender and chaste to unresponsive lips. And not bothering to wipe away the tears that fell, he squeezed Janet's hand and walked out of the room, leaving them alone together.

 **finis**


End file.
